


What's Green and Blue?

by toooldforfandom



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Drama, F/F, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-03
Updated: 2016-10-08
Packaged: 2018-08-19 06:11:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8193229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toooldforfandom/pseuds/toooldforfandom
Summary: Peridot has always thought that people can't change but after meeting a blue-haired girl she can't help but try.
----
“But I’m drunk! You’re drunk!”
“So what? You’re cute and I want to kiss you.”





	1. The Blue-haired Girl

It was the beginning of her last year in college but Peridot hadn’t even appeared for any of her classes, taking as many work shifts as she could while she still had the time. It was only through sheer persistence that her friends had been able to get her out of her apartment.

“I’m tireeeed.” Peridot complained for the hundredth time to the deaf ears of her friends.

“You’re supposed to ‘Study and Work’, not ‘Kill Yourself Working And Never Going To Class’, Peri.” Lars said, drinking from his beer.

“I dunno, I love my job.” Sour Cream said, looking around.

“You’re a freaking DJ, of course you’d say that.” Peridot said exasperated before hitting the table with her head again.

“Hey, check out that chick,” Lars said nodding towards the bar where a girl with blue hair seemed to be waiting for someone.

“Whoa, she’s hot.” Sour Cream said turning around a bit more than necessary to see her.

Lifting her head to see Peridot checked out the girl. “Who does she think she is? Ramona Flowers?” Snorting at her own joke she finished drinking her beer and stood up. “Be right back guys.”

When she returned to the table from the bathroom she was surprised to note that the blue-haired girl was sitting with her friends, laughing at some joke Sour Cream had apparently told. Next to her was a friend Peridot hadn’t seen in months.

“Hey Peri! Long time no see!” Jasper said waving and standing up, her voice effortlessly reaching Peridot through the noise around them, making some of the other tables move their heads to look at them. 

“Hi, yeah, how have you been?” Peridot struggled to reply while Jasper hugged her, lifting her up in the air. “Let me down you brute!” she said through Jasper’s blond hair with a smile in her lips.

Jasper simply laughed back and let the embarrassed girl down, going back to her seat next to the blue-haired girl. “All’s good Peri! Better than ever, I even got that scholarship I told you about last year! I was just telling the guys about it.” 

“Wow, really? That’s great!” Peridot said, happy for her friend. She didn’t know the specifics but it was kinda of a private scholarship from a company, or something like that, for athletes that caught their attention. Free college for a year in any case, thought Peridot with just a tiny bit of envy.

“Yeah, I just got the news, I was getting worried since I had already enrolled for this year but it came through! So, celebrate with me! Let’s all celebrate!” Jasper said, Peridot only then noticing the shots around the entire table. With a “Cheers!” Jasper slammed the shot back without even blinking, followed by everyone else. Peridot felt the burn in her throat, thankful of having a good tolerance seeing Lars cough his lungs out.

“I’m going to get another drink. Does anyone want something?” the blue-haired girl asked.

Peridot being the only one without something to drink pointed to the empty beer bottle in front of her. “Could you get me one of these? I’ll pay you later.”

The girl simply nodded before vanishing into the crowd with Sour Cream behind.

“Is she your… girlfriend?” Peridot asked almost whispering to Jasper.

“Who, Lapis? No, no. I mean, I guess we tried once? But damn, that was a disaster. We are much better as friends. Why, interested?” Jasper asked back with a toothy grin, wiggling her eyebrows, receiving a puny punch in the arm as a response.

“Sour Cream certainly is.” Lars said smirking.

“Ha, he’s barking up the wrong tree. Poor guy, he never gets it right.”

“Yup,“ Peridot replied, remembering how he had tried to flirt with her and Jasper in the same night once. And then had gone to flirt with about every other lesbian in the party, ignoring the straight women. “I wonder how his brain works to have a gay radar so precise but so useless at the same time…”

“He is the perfect wingman though, as soon a girl rejects him you can be right there like ‘Hey, what’s up.’” Jasper said laughing while Peridot rolled her eyes smiling.

“Shit guys, I have to go. Sadie is calling. I told her I had a late shift and if she hears this noise I’m screwed.” Lars said before running towards the exit, his cellphone ringing in his hand.

“Who’s Sadie?”

“His new girlfriend slash co-worker. She’s the responsible one in the relationship, as you can probably notice from her absence today.” Peridot replied said looking at her cellphone. It was late, but not too late.

“I’m back!” The blue-haired girl -Lapis, thought Peridot- announced, sitting down with something that looked like a mixed drink in her hand. 

“Where’s Sour Cream?” Peridot asked after noticing her friend was nowhere to be seen.

“Who? Ah, your lanky friend? He left murmuring ‘not again’ over and over after I mentioned I was gay… is he okay?”

Jasper laughed slapping the table with her hand. “Yeah, he’s fine. He just has the worse taste in women. Or is it the best taste? Anyway, Peri here was complaining about how rude I was for not introducing you, very conveniently forgetting she was in the bathroom when we got here.”

“Hey, I didn’t say that!” Peridot blushed while Jasper laughed again.

“Anyway, this here is Lapis Lazuli,“ Jasper giving the named girl a one-armed hug, ”friend and classmate.”

Peridot looked curiously at Lapis who while taller than her didn’t look sporty, unlike Jasper whose toned muscles seemed to scream her life choices to the world.

“We shared a couple of art classes, with Jasper as a team mate I’d probably be dead already.” said Lapis, seemingly understanding Peridot’s bewildered look.

“Ah yeah, one of the conditions for the scholarship is that I need a ‘well-rounded education’” Jasper said, making air quotes before continuing, “so I had to take a couple of liberal arts classes to qualify. I didn’t want to spend the summer reading so I took a couple of practical art workshops. They were fun and they gave enough credits so yeah. That’s where I met Lapis.”

“She arrived in the middle of class looking like a lost puppy asking if that was the woodcut class.” Lapis laughed while Jasper grumbled good-naturedly.

“Woodcut?” Peridot asked.

“It’s like… making a potato stamp but much more complicated,” Jasper explained laughing while Lapis rolled her eyes. “Anyway, is anyone here way too sober when we should be celebrating? I’m going to get more shots.”

Standing up and winking at them Jasper left them.

Not wanting to be intimidated by the awkward silence Peridot asked, “So, woodcut?”

Lapis smiled ruefully and looked at her with bright blue eyes. “I don’t like to admit it but it’s not that far from what Jasper said. You take a piece of wood, metal or even stone, carve it and then use it to print a canvas or paper.” Looking at Peridot’s confused face she continued “I’ll show you. I have a couple of pics in my phone.” She moved chairs and sat right next to Peridot. Taking out her phone, she scrolled through images of carved wood planks both with and without ink and the resulting prints. “It’s not that hard for the basics but it takes a lot of patience to achieve the result you want. You just take…”

Lapis continued explaining until Jasper’s voice interrupted her. “Hey! Are you trying to seduce my Peri?”

Lapis simply laughed and replied “I do like her cute hair but no, I was trying to undo the damage your potato stamp comparison made.”

“Yeah, now if someone asks I can describe woodcut prints without using your potato comparison.” Peridot said, in what she felt was a smooth recovery.

“Awesome, you have to explain it to me then because even after taking that class I still have no idea how to describe it other than that.” Jasper said, laughing again. “But first, shots!”

Somehow Jasper had brought enough shots to cover a big part of their table.

“That’s a lot of shots, Jasper” said Lapis seriously before smiling, “I guess we have to start now if we want to finish before the place closes!”

Both Jasper and Lapis looked at Peridot expectantly and she couldn’t refuse. “Let’s do it guys, the night is young and so are we!”

And the three of them threw back their shots and then slammed the empty glasses into the table, disturbing the rest of the shots that waited for them.

“Woooo!” Jasper yelled before taking another shot, Lapis right behind her.

Peridot looked at her third shot for a moment, her hand shaking just a little bit making her wonder if it was because of the alcohol or because she could still feel Lapis’ breath in her ear making her stomach do weird things she didn’t entirely dislike. Then, deciding she didn’t care, she looked at her friends and drank the shot while they cheered.

\----

Very drunk and very late. That’s the only way Peridot could describe the situation. Lapis was currently holding on Peridot’s not so stable arm while Jasper, being the less affected of them thanks to her size, looked ahead for a taxi.

“Let’s sit for a while,“ said Peridot sitting on the bench of what looked like a bus stop. Lapis sat right next to her and closed her eyes, feeling the cool breeze of the early morning.

“Shit, we’re never going to get a taxi around here.” Jasper said, walking back to the pair, “I think there’s a bigger street a couple of blocks away. Wait here, I’ll go get one.”

Jasper vanished into the night and Peridot couldn’t help but sigh, thanking every deity that she didn’t have to work that day.

“I’m cold.” Lapis said, cuddling up to Peridot and then looking at her. “I’m going to kiss you.”

Peridot blinked and suddenly everything she could see was pale skin, blue eyes and bangs of blue hair. A second later she could feel Lapis’ hungry lips kissing her. She couldn’t help but respond in kind, feeling Lapis’ body mold to her own, forgetting about the uncomfortable bench and the cold night around them.

It was only when she felt a hand exploring towards her bra that the world came crashing back. “Wait, wait a second.”

Lapis grumbled annoyed at the interruption but stopped. “What?”

“I’m drunk! You’re drunk!”

“So what? You’re cute, I want to kiss you.”

Peridot blushed but stopped Lapis who was leaning for another kiss. “We’re in a bench in the middle of the night! I mean, you’re hot and you kiss extremely well but…” Struggling for words she stood up to resist the desire of kissing Lapis again and began walking back and forth.

“You think too much,” Lapis said, yawning. “It’s just a kiss, it doesn’t have to be perfect or mean anything. Can’t you just enjoy the moment?”

Peridot stopped walking and winced. It wasn’t the first time she had been told that. She turned, ready to say something, anything, when a car’s horn interrupted her.

“Hey guys, get in!” yelled Jasper from the back window of a taxi.

Lapis stood up yawning again and walked past Peridot without even looking at her. Peridot simply followed, feeling lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry! I know it's Yet Another Lapis / Peridot Human AU (YALPHAU) but I just couldn't resist adding my own take.
> 
> Let me know what you think. Also, guess what's the one sentence that inspired the whole thing!


	2. The Text

It was night and Peridot supposed it was cold but she couldn’t feel anything but Lapis’ hot breath in her neck. They weren’t cuddling in a bench any more, Peridot had her back to the wall with Lapis pushing possessively, like she couldn’t get enough of her and her body, one hand in her waist dangerously exploring upwards and the other hand pinning her arm to the wall.

Peridot opened her mouth to say something but Lapis was quicker to the draw and kissed her, making her mind go blank again. Lapis’ fingers were slowly moving upwards, caressing, almost torturing her with the contrast between the desire behind her kisses and the lightness of her touch. Peridot’s chest involuntary moved forward seeking more but Lapis kept touching her lightly, playfully. Again she could feel Lapis’ breath in her neck, kissing and biting and Peridot couldn’t help but moan quietly, grabbing her sheets in…

Wait. Sheets?

Peridot opened her eyes and groaned aloud, covering her face with her hands. It had been almost a week since she had met that hipster chick and every single night she had had a similar dream.

“It was just a kiss Peridot, just a kiss! Get over it already!” she said slapping her face before fumbling around her sheets looking for her phone. Finally finding it in the floor she squinted trying to make sense of its screen without her glasses. Five to six. The alarm wouldn’t sound for half an hour, not enough to make it worth it to keep sleeping but just enough to make it a very tempting proposition. Groaning again she got up.

The studio apartment was tiny, something she was thankful about in mornings like that one, when every step she had to walk towards her morning coffee was a torture.

While waiting for the coffee to be ready she looked around trying to find some distraction to avoid thinking about her dreams. Sadly, she thought, the only distraction the apartment offered were bad memories that lingered far longer than they should. The place had been _hers_ after all.

“I should move, find some roommates, save on rent…” Peridot muttered softly for what felt like the thousandth time since the breakup. She closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair, sighing. Maybe having those dreams wasn’t so awful after all.

 

* * *

 

“Girl, you alright?” Amethyst asked, a tone of worry in her voice. “You look like you haven’t slept in days.”

They were in the computer shop were Peridot worked. She liked working in the back where she could just work her day away cleaning up old computers with no chance of having to interact with the public but her insistence in taking every single turn available meant that some days she had to either go home or attend the support desk. And there she was sitting, bored out of her mind. Amethyst, the cashier, had just told a client to come back with his computer since they couldn’t do anything with the picture he had took of it with his phone, and now was looking at Peridot curiously.

“I’m having some problems sleeping. Weird dreams…” Peridot paused and looked at her colleague. They weren’t friends but she had always been nice to her so steeling herself she asked, “Say… can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” Amethyst replied dragging a stool and sitting in front of Peridot. “What’s up?”

“I… I may have drunkenly made out with someone the other night…”

“Ooooh, that’s my girl Peridot!” Amethyst interrupted loudly before Peridot motioned her to be quiet while looking around. “Sorry, was he hot?”

“He… he was hot, in a kinda hipster-y way? You know, dyed hair, tight jeans, perfect blue eyes…” Peridot sighed.

“Okay, okay, hotness established,” Amethyst said raising her palms laughing.

“Anyway!” Peridot continued, harrumphing. “I have been dreaming every night about that kiss.”

“Damn, you got it bad. Was it that good?”

“I don’t… I don’t know. It was weird. We were drunk, it was very sudden… it was good but weird?” Peridot said looking to the ceiling. “I didn’t even think of him like that until that kiss. He was just the friend of a friend, interesting and hot but not my type and now I can’t stop thinking about him.”

“So, why haven’t you called him already?” Amethyst asked like it was the most obvious solution in the world making Peridot roll her eyes.

“Because I don’t have his number. And I’m not sure that’s what he wants?” Seeing Amethyst questioning look she continued, “I may have freaked out just a little after the kiss, because you know, drunk. And then he told me that the kiss didn’t have to mean anything and acted like nothing had happened afterwards.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah, damn. I have no idea what to do, any ideas?”

“Get laid.” Amethyst said receiving a push for her trouble, “Okay, okay. If you don’t want to do that… text him? It was the friend of a friend, right? Get his number and text him to see if he’s down for a coffee or something. The worst that can happen is that he’ll blow you off and you can get over him without feeling like you didn’t do anything about it.” Amethyst looked to the door and stood up. “Shit, someone is coming. But seriously, getting laid is a good alternative!”

With that parting shot she quickly left to the checkout area. Peridot looked in wonder at Amethyst, feeling like she had misjudged the extroverted woman. She still didn’t know what she was going to do but at the very least she felt she had grown closer to her colleague.

 

* * *

 

It took Peridot two hours before she decided to follow Amethyst’s advice, mainly because she kept pestering her about it, pointing to her phone and making suggestive gestures from across the room when she thought no one was looking.

It didn’t take long before Jasper replied her text message.

_“HEY WHATS UP?”_

Before she could get cold feet she replied, _“Sorry. I was wondering if you could give me Lapse phone?”_. Followed by a second message, _“* Lapis”_

And then nothing for what felt like an eternity. She was in the middle of attending a customer when her phone finally vibrated again. Rushing the order and sending the customer to Amethyst she was able to sit and check her phone.

 _“SORRY, CLASS. SURE.”_ Attached was a phone contact: “Lapis Lazuli.” A second message followed, _“DID I MISS SOMETHING? U WERE ACTING WEIRD IN THE TAXI.”_

 _“I’ll tell you later.”_ Peridot replied, not wanting to get into it before she could actually figure it out. She did need however to ask Jasper something for her own peace of mind, something that had been nagging her since that night, _”Did you tell Lapis I was gay?”_

Jasper replied almost immediately, _“ARE U NUTS? OF COURSE NOT WTF????”_

_“Sorry, I promise I’ll explain later!”_

_“ASAP”_ was Jasper’s one-word reply, making Peridot groan.

Why had Lapis felt so comfortable kissing her, Peridot wondered, if the girl didn’t know for sure she was gay? Had she overheard Jasper? Maybe Sour Cream had told her after being rejected one more time? Or did she kiss random people just in case she got lucky? 

  
Waiting to avoid the pang in her chest she was beginning to feel she quickly added Lapis’ number to her contacts and tried to focus on getting though her turn.

 

* * *

 

 _“Hi, I’m Peridot, the woman you kissed a couple of nights ago.”_ Peridot stared at the phone for a couple of seconds before deleting what she had just written before trying again. 

_“Hey, I’m Peri. Jasper’s friend from the other night.”_

She wrote one message after another, immediately discarding them. 

_“Hi, I’m Peridot. Jasper’s friend.”_

What if Lapis thought she was stalking her? What if Lapis just laughed at her or complained to Jasper? 

_”Hi, what’s up? I’m Peri, Jasper’s friend from the other night.”_

What if she didn't even care? Almost throwing her phone in frustration she turned off its screen and pocketed it. Amethyst had left much earlier wishing her luck, something that still surprised her a bit.

She was alone, her double shift had already ended, her last in a while since she couldn’t keep skipping class, but it was her turn to close so everyone had left already. She finished closing the last door and hurried. It wasn’t that late but she didn’t like getting home after dark, it wasn’t a good neighborhood.

It was in the subway when she finally got her phone out to try again but the messaging app was closed. Her stomach dropped, had the message been sent? She almost dropped her phone when it vibrated, a new message waiting for her.

_”Hi, hi! Blond hair, cute glasses, right? I don’t remember much after that first couple of shots, that hangover nearly killed me, but it was fun”_

Lapis didn’t remember. Peridot felt like she would cry and laugh and yell and dance around all at once. She had spent almost a week thinking about that kiss and Lapis didn’t even remember it.

She looked again at the message not knowing what what to do. She hadn’t been expecting a sudden declaration of love or anything but a complete memory blank was unexpected. Thinking back to that night she did remember Lapis sleeping and drooling on Jasper when she had gotten out of the car. 

_“Yeah, it was fun. Just wanted to know if you were okay after that. Nice to met you.”_

Peridot’s finger hovered over the send button. If she sent that message everything would be over, Lapis would probably forget about her and keep being a hipster artist chick that liked to get drunk and kiss random girls and she would go back to her dreams and her sad apartment and her normal life…

Deleting the message she had written she wrote something else and pressed send, smiling. She was tired of just dreaming.

_“Yeah, it was fun. I don’t remember much either but I do remember owing you a beer. Want to go out and get it this Friday?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of backstory hints. A bit of setup. A bit of peridot growing guts.


End file.
